Can We Talk About Israel?
A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
National Jewish Book Award finalist
An essential and accessible introduction to one of the most complex, controversial topics in the world, from a leading expert on Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
When it comes to Israel and Palestine, it can be hard to know what to say. Daniel Sokatch gets it. He heads the New Israel Fund, an organization dedicated to equality and democracy for all Israelis--Arab, Jewish, and otherwise. The question he gets asked, on an almost daily basis, is, "Can't you just explain the Israel situation to me? In, like, 10 minutes or less?" This book is his timely and much-needed answer.
Can We Talk About Israel? tells the story of that country and explores why so many people feel so strongly about it without actually understanding it very well at all. Sokatch grapples with a century-long struggle between two peoples that both perceive themselves as (and indeed are) victims. And he explains why Israel (and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) inspires such extreme feelings--why it seems like Israel is the answer to "what is wrong with the world" for half the people in it, and "what is right with the world" for the other half. As Sokatch asks, is there any other topic about which so many intelligent, educated, and sophisticated people express such strongly and passionately held convictions, and about which they actually know so little?
Complete with engaging illustrations by Christopher Noxon, Can We Talk About Israel? is an easy-to-read yet penetrating and original look at a subject we could all afford to better understand.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New Israel Fund CEO Sokatch debuts with an accessible and balanced survey of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After sketching the significance of the region in Jewish history, Sokatch details the birth of the Zionist movement in the late 19th century as a response to Jewish persecution in Europe. His slightly more abbreviated history of Palestinian Arabs begins in the seventh century and runs through the British takeover of Palestine in 1917. Documenting escalating tensions between Arabs and Jews during the 20th century, Sokatch recaps the 1936 Arab Revolt, the Six-Day War in 1967 that led to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a right-wing Jewish extremist in 1995. The book ends on a hopeful note, with first-person accounts by Arab and Jewish activists who have made a "common commitment to work for a different, better, shared future for Israel." Flashes of humor, including Noxon's witty black-and-white illustrations, lighten the mood without sacrificing in-depth analysis. Readers will welcome this informative and fair-minded primer on one of the world's most fiercely debated issues.
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